She was the mightiest warrior of the island of Smyrna who fought against invaders and led her people to victory many times over. But on her 20th birthday, a traveling minstrel changed her fate. This minstrel snuck into the island in one of the big fis.h.i.+ng boats used by pirates. There was a big battle and when it ended only this minstrel survived. He wasn't a warrior, only a youth who had traveled from place to place since he was very young.

Hippolyta took a liking to him and made him her personal attendant. In turn, the boy told her of many things he had seen, people he had met, and the grand cities and kingdoms he had visited with his father, who was also a travelling minstrel like him.

Hippolyta was fascinated by these stories. By this time, she had already grown weary of the constant battles she and her people fought and was actually looking for an escape. Smyrna was a great big island situated between two warring kingdoms. The island was populated almost entirely of women and they have riches, gold and silver that the warring kingdoms covet. But what they want were the women most of all. The women were warriors of the first kind. Skilled in combat and warfare, they were a powerful force that could swing power to whosoever win them over. And Hippolyta was the biggest prize, for she was the queen of these Amazons.

Hippolyta already knew the outcome if one of these foes succeeded in conquering the island so she made her plans. There was a three-day celebration on hallows eve that the island and the surrounding kingdoms honor every year. There was to be no war or pillaging other than the full wors.h.i.+p of the deities and the G.o.ds they acknowledged.

It was actually nothing more than a big orgy of gluttony, drinking and other base activities common to most men so Hippolyta took advantage of the merriment and made her escape. She and the 50,000 women she took with her eventually settled on the coast of a village they later named Saravia.

Years pa.s.sed and life seemed to have settled peacefully for these women and Hippolyta. Every year, some of them would go out on a trip and get together with men from other villages. The women would get pregnant and go back to Saravia to give birth. All the baby boys were returned to their fathers while the baby girls stayed with their mothers. These girls will eventually received their training in combat and warfare when they get older. This way, the survival of the community was a.s.sured, as it had been for many centuries.

Hippolyta's fate, however, underwent another drastic change because of a man. Hippolyta was a benign leader. True, she could be a deep s.h.i.+t b.i.t.c.h but that's only when she's acting as the commander during war times. On peaceful times, she tends to prefer to live a quiet life, tending to her garden and reading her books. She also had a very inquisitive mind so she likes to experiment with chemicals and other stuff. She also perfected the art of weaponry and in fact had a ma.s.sive collection of all kinds of weapons by the time Saravia was established.

But what she liked to do most was spend time alone in her favorite place, a grove with a gentle waterfall in the middle. She would swim there every morning, train with her weapons, read, hunt and basically live the quiet life she had wanted for a long time. She had even constructed a house some distance from the waterfall, along with a shed that served as a laboratory for her experiments.

She had decided to spend the winter there when a man out on a hunt knocked on her door one morning. She opened the door but didn't let him in. He knocked again and she slammed the door on his face. It went that way for several hours until Hippolyta grew annoyed and decided to leave. She had remembered that it was hunting season and the man was probably lost but since she didn't want to deal with him, she left.

The man, however, seemed to have the wrong impression. He turned out to be hiding in the trees and when he saw her leave he followed her. Hippolyta was annoyed so she challenged him to a duel. The man laughed, so did the other men with him, fellow hunters that acted as his coteries. There were twenty of them. There was only Hippolyta. She fought them using a wooden branch and defeated them so ignominiously, one of the men crawled on the ground and shouted for his mommy.

Their leader was stunned. Hippolyta was a woman of easy temperament. She was also somewhat of an exhibitionist. On summer days, when the weather turned so hot you can fry an egg on a forehead, she liked to go about her business wearing only the flimsiest pair of bikinis. She wasn't the only one though. All of her followers emulated their leader so the sight of nearly naked women moving about in one location can be quiet daunting, that is, if you're a man lucky enough to see such a sight.

That time, when Hippolyta entangled with the men in the grove, she was wearing a thick fur that covered her from head to toe. It was, after all, in the middle of winter and although she still liked to go swimming when the water was frigid cold, she wore the robe because she remembered that she had it with her. So, she fought the men and defeated them and the men had an eyeful of her gorgeous figure, naked under the black fur robe that enclosed her lissome body.

And that was that. Hippolyta went home and never thought of the man again. Summer arrived and the man who had invaded her private house at the grove and refused to leave was at her door knocking again.

This man had a very privileged life. He was the son of a very rich man who had just discovered politics. His mother was also rich but her side of the family had a more sinister background for they dabbled in the art of magic and her son was said to be the high-ranking warlock of the realm.

This man was really but a boy, for he was only 17 years old at that time and very spoiled. His concubines were said to have numbered 300 by the time he turned 15, which was rather an exaggeration since his house wasn't large enough to accommodate such an awesome number. But it was large enough to house 30, to his mother's everlasting frustration.

The boy was known as Li Cheung and he was very powerful. He was known in the seven kingdoms for the killing of a dragon that terrorized half the city of Siango. The boy led the strike and used magic or alchemy to bring the dragon down. The emperor even rewarded him with riches and a parade, with the women weeping over his handsome face like he was a G.o.d.

Hippolyta, who was unaware of the boy's fame, regarded him as a pest. She neither talked to him or even looked at him. Worst of all, she locked the gates of the village against him. Since the village, after all, considered men as mere va.s.sals for their seed, one or two women asked him to mate with them. But the manner of their asking was so insulting, he refused and vowed revenge on Hippolyta for rejecting him.

Hippolyta didn't even know his name and even if she did she wouldn't even throw him a bone of interest so life went on calmly for her and agonizingly slow for him.

He had by this time acknowledged that he desired her as he never desired another woman in his life before her. He tried telling her, when he saw her again after having waited at the gates for a week, but she merely looked at him like he was a stranger. Hippolyta was staring at him like he was a stranger because he looked in fact like a stranger to her.

He had cut his long hair, lost weight and looked so pale and haggard in his blue robes that she blinked a few times upon seeing him. She was about to ask one of her attendants who he was when the bugle for the hunt sounded and she forgot about him again. Li Cheung was despondent but followed the hunt at a close distance.

The women by this time had grown accustomed to his presence. He had grown friendlier with Enxuo, the travelling minstrel who had been promoted from attendant to a.s.sistant by Hippolyta and the two men were often seen together, talking about news from the outside world and playing chess on Enxuo's front porch.

Enxuo lived outside the village, in a house that Hippolyta built for him. Living close with the women for nearly a decade had been an eye opener for him. He admired their strength, their pa.s.sion about war, but also their strong sense of justice and their commitment to each other. During that time, he never saw Hippolyta lost her temper. He never saw her kill from pleasure or gain. He also watched as she never grew old, along with the women with her.

One day, at the end of his fifth decade with her, she leaned towards him and plucked a white hair from his head. She looked at the hair and at him and said, with a trace of sadness in her eyes: "Time moves forward for ordinary men. You will be leaving me soon, Enxuo."

He stared at her and wept. He was a boy of twelve when he first snuck on that boat and met her. She was to him like a mother and sister rolled into one. He had never realized how much he had hungered for family until he met her. Many times in the past she had asked him if she wanted to leave so he could marry and have kids. He compromised by mating one of her trusted lieutenants and got her pregnant. When the child was born, the mother returned the child to him because it was a boy.

He took care of the child and Hippolyta broke one of her rules by allowing him to live outside the village. He named the child Trei and his mother would occasionally visit him, teaching him the ways of war for his own protection. One day, Enxuo finally plucked the courage to ask her to marry him but she refused, saying wanderl.u.s.t was much too ingrained in her to ever marry anyone. She was happy to live with him with their child if he wants but not marriage. Enxuo was disappointed but accepted the situation.

That day when Hippolyta plucked the white hair from his head, Enxuo went home and looked at himself in the mirror. He was an old man by then, older than his own father who died of typhus during one of their travels together. Enxuo wanted to rage in protest but he was a realistic man and merely went about arranging his business in silence.

A few days later, Trei was at the porch when he turned to his father and said: "I think the mistress is here to see you, Father."

It was indeed Hippolyta. Enxuo was startled because it was the first time she had ever visited him in his house before but he went out to welcome her and Trei was left preparing some food in the kitchen.

Hippolyta didn't stay long. The most astonis.h.i.+ng thing was that she invited Enxuo for a walk and they found themselves at the grove, watching as the waterfall gently flowed down the basin that formed into a river twining around the trees.

Enxuo was perplexed and looked askance at Hippolyta. Hippolyta smiled and gestured forward.

"Take a bath under the waters," she ordered.

Enxuo hesitated but did as he was told. The water was surprisingly warm and gentle against his skin. He stayed there immersed in its wetness for half an hour until Hippolyta gestured to him again. He climbed out of the stream and s.h.i.+vered when a gust of wind hit his wet body.

"That should do it," Hippolyta said. "Merius will be happy. She had been begging me to do this since the birth of the child."

Enxuo looked at her totally at a loss.

"Immortality, Enxuo. Immortality. I, as the leader of the Amazons, have the power to turn life to death and death to life. The water in this stream has collected most of my essence so everything it touches will bloom to life even if it's dead.

"Eternal life. My gift to you, Enxuo, as one of the most loyal va.s.sals in my employ. Remember, I can give it and take it back again. Your choice."

Enxuo was still uncomprehending, staring at Hippolyta like she had just lost her mind. Hippolya threw her head back and laughed. She was still laughing when Enxuo ran to the stream and looked at his face in the clear water. The old him had become the younger him again. The younger him that went to war with the kingdom of Merlon and witnessed for the first time the power of Hippolyta and her army of women in battle.